How To

Set Up and Get to Know Your New Mac

So you just bought your new Apple product and bragged to all friends about getting it.

Well now its time to get down to business and get your mac up and running.

Before you dive right into your new Mac, there are a few things you ought to do first:

Run Software Update – Chances are your new Mac isn’t as new as it could be. Since OS X was probably pre-installed on it quite awhile back, you’re probably due for an update. To get things started, head on over to the Apple menu and choose Software Update. This will launch—you guessed it—Software Update and it will check for new updates. When it’s done, install everything available. After you restart, repeat this process again to see if there are new updates. Some updates can’t install until others have already been installed, so keep checking until Software Update reports that there are no new updates available

Get to Know System Preferences – If you’re new to the Mac, you should probably take a leisurely stroll through System Preferences (which you can access through the Apple menu and likely find in your dock). Take a look at each of the preference panels so you can become acquainted with your options. You’ll eventually find yourself spending a fair amount of time in here so it helps to know where things are.

Set Up Your Sharing Preferences – In System Preferences, there’s a panel called Sharing. Open that up and you’ll be presented with a long list of sharing services. Many of these services are very helpful if you need to share with another computer (whether it’s your own or someone else’s). Take a look at them all and enable the ones you’d find useful—just make sure to only allow your user or any future users created on the machine may end up with access to the enabled services.

Repair Disk Permissions – Once you’re all done, it’s always good form to repair your disk permissions so nothing gets out of whack. To do this, go into your Hard Drive —> Applications —> Utilities and open Disk Utility. Choose your hard drive from the list on the left, select the First Aid tab, and click the Repair Permissions button. This will take a few minutes and may not end up repairing anything at all, but it’s always good to run it on a regular basis and after you’ve made significant changes to your machine.